The sorting of mail is a very complex, time-consuming task. In general, the sorting of mail is processed through many stages, including front end and back end processes. For example, and as discussed in further detail below, these processes include reading delivery information, and sorting and/or sequencing the mail in delivery order sequence. These processes can either be manual or automated, depending on the mail sorting facility, the type of mail being sorted such as packages, flats, letters and the like. A host of other factors may also contribute to the automation of the mail sorting, from budgetary concerns to modernization initiatives to access to appropriate technologies to a host of other factors.
Also, the delivery of mail is known to be critical to commerce and the underlying economy. It is thus critical to commerce and the underlying economy to provide efficient delivery of such mail in both a cost effective and time efficient manner. This includes, for example, reading delivery destination information from the mail, and arranging the randomly deposited mail into a sequential delivery order for delivery to a destination point based on the destination information.
In current sorting processes, optical character recognition (OCR) systems may be used to capture destination information. These optical character recognition systems read, for example, the destination information of the mail pieces. A bar code is then assigned to the destination information of the mail pieces. The bar code (tag) is used as a mail piece identification that can be used to identify the mail piece in the mail stream. This process alters the original mail piece and requires both a bar code printer and reader, which adds operational expense in that printers and readers have to be purchased and maintained by the facility. Although additional machinery is needed, in current systems the use of bar codes is advantageous in that it allows rapid and accurate reading of the mail pieces to be performed thus increasing the overall efficiencies of the sorting and/or sequencing processes.
Although OCR processes have reached a relatively high level of sophistication in order to accommodate hand-written indicia as well as many different fonts of many different or even varying sizes, it certain instances, the delivery destination information cannot be read accurately by the OCR. In these cases, it is not possible to put a bar code on the mail pieces until such information is resolved. This, of course, takes additional processing time which effectively slows the sorting and/or sequencing of the mail pieces. For example, in the case that the destination information cannot be resolved, the captured information is sent to an operator. The operator has to read the destination information, key in the correct destination information and send it back to the processing facility. Once the processing facility receives the destination information, the bar code printer can then tag the mail piece with a bar code.
As another issue, the amount of information which can be encoded in a bar code or similar machine-readable indicia may often be limited. Additionally, bar code or machine-readable indicia are subject to sources of error such as being performed in response to a possibly erroneous optical character recognition process or incorrect bar codes being applied by a sender which do not correspond to the written address. Moreover, bar code or machine readable indicia may not be applied to all articles subjected to the automated process.
The invention is designed to overcome one or more of the above problems.